Numb
by Dianay
Summary: A group of revoultionaries, called the Autonomy Contingent, rise in Zion. They wreak havoc inside and outside the Matrix thus forcing the Council to call upon the strongest men and women of Zion to rectify the situation.
1. Chapter 1

Ada nodded her head to the pounding White Zombie beat and took a sip of her drink. She saw the man come up behind her, but acted surprised to the sound of his voice. As he spoke, Ada noticed the odor of stale Altoids on his breath and gin-soaked sweat from his pores. She knew he was talking to her, but she was too busy being bored to listen. Who needs a sweaty drunk with smelly breath anyway?  
  
Peeling herself off of the barstool that she had been attached to for the past half-hour wasn't an easy task. Ada swiftly removed herself from the man's arm's range before he had a chance to pull her back into his mindless droning void. The man gave a small sound of protest that would have been amusing if he had been bothering anyone else.  
  
Weaving in and out of the scantily clad sea of black vinyl and chains, Ada made sure that, if the man had decided to follow her, he would soon get lost.   
  
Ada found a place in a lowly lit corner of the small club occupied only by a face-sucking couple and a man who looked unconscious enough to never wake up again. She quickly lit a cigarette, as she often did when she was bored or tense. Breathing in, the beautiful smoke filled her lungs with one of the best feelings possible; or at least she thought so.   
  
"Those things will kill you." It was whispered from her left where the forever-unconscious man had sprawled.  
  
Ada stared at the man whom she had predicted to die in an hour or so. "Excuse me?"  
  
He gestured to the cigarette, "You know cancer, emphysema. They always say that young people think they can quit and then get so addicted they can't, you know?"  
  
While he spoke, she had been looking at the cigarette as if she were contemplating the use of some foreign object that she had never seen before. When he finished speaking she quickly shifted her eyes to him with the same questioning gaze. "I'm not addicted to them."  
  
The right side of his mouth gave way to a little smile, "Of course you're not."  
  
From the sincerity in his voice, Ada wasn't sure if he was patronizing her or not. She cocked her head to the side like a kitten introduced to catnip for the first time, "What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
"You know what it means." He spoke in a tone of shared confidentiality and rose out of the battered green chair that he had been waiting in.  
  
Ada also stood up from her chair, "I don't think you understand. I just don't smoke them everyday, that's all."   
  
The man began to turn away and then thought better of it, "We both completely understand each other, Ada, and you know it."   
  
He finally turned and began to walk away when Ada did something that she had not intentionally or willfully done in over a month. She grabbed his hand. Also, at this moment, a fight broke out amidst the sea of gyrating bodies, pushing about ten people into her and even more between she and the first man in a long time to hold her interest. 


	2. Chapter 2

MEANWHILE...  
  
Scout's brow furrowed as she watched a future addition to her ship's crew. "She's talking to someone, but I can't see anyone."  
  
Syntax, who had been peering over the younger woman's shoulder, leaned in closer to the screen displaying Ada's whereabouts. "Yeah, I see what you mean. You don't think this has anything to do with the Council's warning do you?"  
  
"Maybe, but what would she be doing with one of them anyway, we've been surveilling her for some time now and she's never shown signs of even being aware that such a movement would exist."  
  
"Unless they want her for the same reasons we do."  
  
Scout swiveled slightly to her left to make eye contact with her captain. "Do you think they could sway her to their way of thinking?"  
  
In a sudden but swift movement, he stepped away from Scout's chair. Now, as he often did during deep thought and contemplation, Syntax paced around the area inhabited by the control station with closed eyes and a hand to his chin. In the three years since she had been unplugged, Scout had never seen him bump into any furniture or people that may have been in his way during this state of meditation. After a long moment of silence, Scout wondered if she should say something, but Syntax began to speak before she could conjure up something to say.  
  
"When we first requested the clearance to free another mind there was longer deliberation over the matter. Not only because we released Wolf recently, but also because of Ada's nature. Through studying her interactions and the incident a few weeks before putting in our request, we became aware that she is a very contemptuous and wary person. The Council, and the resistance in general, have hit many brick walls due to the cynicism and skepticism of the prospective freed minds.  
  
"Ada was and still is different. While she shows signs of one who would choose the blue pill, she also seems willing to fight the system. As you know, rebelliousness has been used before to convince coppertops to unplug. Ada seems like she would be willing to at least talk to us, but we would have to go about the transaction carefully especially with the new threat of the Autonomy Contingent. Of course we can't be sure that it wasn't just a glitch, but-"  
  
Scout broke in, "I've seen glitches that have caused similar situations and this is no glitch. There was a noticeable parting of the crowd as whoever it was walked through and Ada was reaching for something tangible as it moved through the crowd." Her eyes darted to the screen and then back to her superior, "I don't know who this Autonomy Contingent are or how they are doing it, but I do know that they are manipulating the Matrix in such a way that they are untraceable. Even we can't do that and these people can't have any better technology than we do."  
  
"They might," Syntax gave a sigh that reminded Scout of a polar bear's monotonous moan. "Most of the resistance, especially those in Zion, don't realize how advanced some technology is. Much like hackers and computer experts in the Matrix, it is possible for laypeople to construct things of their own design to help them carry out certain activities. What little spare parts there are can give enough to ameliorate groups like this Autonomy Contingent. We already know, from the information that the Council has released, that the Autonomy Contingent has at least one ship in its possession, but that is just about the end of what anyone knows about the group besides what they hope to achieve."  
  
Scout shook her head and looked back at the screens displaying the Matrix code. "Well, she's back in her apartment. She seems a little freaked out by the encounter." She looked back at her superior, "I doubt that she's going to be up for any meetings with us anytime soon. I think we're going to have to rely on surveillance for at least a little while longer."  
  
Syntax nodded his head and looked down at the floor. His hands behind his back, he strolled out of the control room and as he exited softly said, "We'll just have to see about that." 


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Sorry this is so short, but it's kind of like a two part chapter thing. I think it'll be more effective if I put the second part up tomorrow (which I promise I will do). The second part should be longer too, to make up for it I guess.   
  
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A volt of electricity ran through Ada. It's Him. It had been weeks and for the first time since their encounter, it was him. He was standing rigidly upright as if in anticipation. The dank alleyway was usually only frequented by hobos and stray cats, but he didn't seem to mind. Today, he was there.   
  
He was in the alley that she had almost been mugged in on her way home from work one night. The alley that never failed to instill a shuddering thankfulness in her. Whenever she passed it by, Ada remembered the harsh grip of that desperate man and the luck of the policeman on his way to work. Whenever she walked past that dark alley, she thought of him and his dark glasses. She remembered that he had seemed more like a modern gunslinger than any type of night cop. It wasn't merely his stance that convinced Ada he was something more. She highly doubted that many police officers wore trenchcoats and knee-high buckled boots on their way to work; not to mention that he was wearing sunglasses at night.  
  
That didn't matter, though. It was inconsequential as they say. It didn't matter because he was there now and this time he was within her grasp.  
  
Briefly, a thought flitted across Ada's mind as to why she was standing there on that desolate sidewalk at this time of night. She knew that she had somewhere to be and that she must of come from someplace; but where? A chilling wind tugged at her skirt, but she didn't notice. The wind could have torn the skirt clean off, but she would have made no move to get it for fear that he would disappear as he had before. She was paralyzed by the mere prospect of talking to him again.   
  
A thought struck her. Blindsided, Ada asked herself, "Is he even really there? It's happening again isn't it. This fixation has been plaguing me for so long. It has to be him. Right?" Horrified, Ada mustered all her courage and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, he was still there. Ada let out a deep breath that she hadn't realized she was holding and took a shaky step forward. Refusing to let her knees lock together, she continued this Frankenstein Stagger until she reached the opening of the alley.  
  
Ada opened her mouth to speak, but before she could make a sound a man flew down onto the ground in front of her. He didn't fly so much as gracefully landed. Ada made a move to help him, for she assumed he had fallen off the roof of the building next to her, but having landed on his feet the man seemed fine. Of course Ada's benevolence quickly wore off as the man started to shoot. Not at her, but at him.  
  
"No!" she screamed as she ran forward into the line of fire.   
  
The man ceased his firing and stared at Ada in surprise, "What are you doing here?"  
  
Ada crouched next to the bleeding man. It felt like the world was shaking around her. No, that was wrong. She was the one shaking. Ada placed her hands on his chest in a futile attempt to stop some blood flow and gasped when the dying man grabbed her hand.  
  
He pulled her closer with what strength he had left and whispered, "Open your eyes." 


End file.
